Thursday, May 22, 2014

It's All In Your Head: The Future of Helments Is Nown!

Way back in 1590, William Shakespeare started the helment debate in his play, "The Training of the Fred," when the titular character uttered his now-famous soliloquy:

"Helments. To wear or not to wear? Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to don a bulbous foamy brain-bucket, or to forego the overpriced beer cooler and let thine pate shine heavenward..."

It rages to this day.

But let's set the debate part aside for the moment and instead focus on the helments themselves. For thousands of years, bicycle helments remained unchanged, from the one worn by Spartacus in the first century BC:

Sure, they may look a little different, but wind tunnel tests confirm that the Spartacus BC helment is in fact slightly more aerodynamic.

However, in recent years this has changed, and thanks to technology and computers and electronics and stuff humankind is now witnessing helment innovation for the first time since a caveman had the brilliant idea to strap an armadillo to his head before riding his pet dinosaur. Granted, almost all of this innovation is utterly useless and patently ridiculous, but nevertheless it exists, and therefore it's about time some bike blogger undertook a comprehensive survey of the futuristic helment technology available to cyclists today--and I is those bloggers:

("I'm Spartacus!")

So let's begin. After this commercial message:

I have a recurring nightmare in which a group of robotic triathletes emerge from a German luxury car and pursue me, and I was utterly horrified to discover that it's actually been put to video.

Now let's begin.

The first futuristic helment in my definitive guide is the so-called MindReader, as forwarded by a reader, which purports to do exactly what its name suggests:

At first, I was skeptical. Why do I need a helment that can read my mood while I'm riding my bicycle? Not only do I already have this information, but so does everyone else around me when I give them the finger. Also, what's the point of this?

In the coming weeks we're going to put a bunch of MindRiders on our friends and bike the streets of Manhattan, where we'll be developing a psycho-geographic map of the city.

Psycho-geographic map?!? Whatever. I've already completed the same project, and all I needed was a pen and a pad. Basically, I just rode around Manhattan and stopped every few blocks to take note of how I felt. Here's the result, which I subsequently paid a graphic design firm $30,000 to digitize:

Back in the 20th century the area around Times Square might have read "mildly aroused," but those days are long gone.

Nevertheless, I kind of wanted one of these helments anyway, because I thought it would be fun to wear while watching TV. So I visited the website:

My first reaction was to point out that I already let my brain express itself with my mouth, but then I realized that the MindReader effectively bypasses your super-ego and is pure, unalloyed id distilled into three colors: red, yellow and green. Then it hit me:

It's only a matter of time before the streets are taken over by self-driving cars. However, there still won't be any self-riding bicycles. So, what will happen is that they (it's always "they") will make MindRider helments mandatory, and as soon as your little mood light turns red you'll be pulled over by the Thought Police who will bring you to a rider reeducation camp, where they will fit you with a device they call the "Happy Helment:"

(What happens in Room 101 stays in Room 101.)

Your light will stay green and you'll be a good little cyclist after that, believe me.

And as for the "psycho-geographic map," the red is where the proles live:

Brooklyn is at war with Portland. Brooklyn has always been at war with Portland.

And so forth.

Needless to say, I signed myself up for a test helment:

I can't wait for my helment to confirm that I hope the driver who just cut me off crashes into a lamppost, and that his airbag malfunctions and somehow forces him into the act of autofellatio.

Monitor your heart-rate without using a chest strap while riding.The world's first cycling helmet that continuously measures your heart-rate without using a chest strap. SMART uses electro-optical technology to continuously measure your heart-rate. The optical sensor is placed on the helmet's front, gently touching your forehead. The sensor samples the blood pulse in a high frequency and transmits a raw signal to the processing unit, which is placed in the helmet back.

Assuming you give a shit what your heart rate is or need confirmation that you're still alive while cycling, you may be wondering what happens if you decide to wear a hat under it. Do the sensors still work?

Just have your local tailor sew one of these into every one of your cycling hats. See that? Much better than a chest strap.

Okay, so now you have a helment that confirms you're still alive. But what if you've crashed, and the life is slowly draining out of you? Well, if you're wearing a helment it's extremely unlikely this will happen, because nothing bad ever happens to people wearing helments. Even so, better safe than sorry, so here's ICEdot, the helment that will alert others if you go ass over tea kettle, scranus over coffee maker, vulvanus over French press, or whatever your preferred body part/beverage maker metaphor combo may be:

I've mentioned the ICEdot before, but I can't be bothered to look up where or when, so instead I'll just point out the following: A popular cyclocross star like Jeremy Powers probably has lots of friends--so many that he can program his ICEdot helment to send texts to his ten (10) closest pals in the unlikely event that his awesome skillz fail him and he goes ballsack over soda fountain machine on his next training ride.

But what about the rest of us? If you're a cyclist odds are you have few friends as it is, and if you're riding alone, well it's probably because you don't have any friends, so it's totally not viable. Take this guy I know who's not me. He doesn't really work per se, he mostly just goofs off on the Internet. He also has no friends, because nobody can stand him, so his riding basically consists of knocking around behind shopping malls in the middle of the week. Now let's say this guy gets an ICEdot helment and he crashes, which he's bound to do because he sucks so bad. Then the ICEdot goes into his phone's contacts, but because he's such a loser the only contact in his phone is his wife, and he's not even supposed to be riding, he's supposed to clean the house before she gets home because what the hell does he even do all day? So basically he's in pain and he's in trouble.

Thanks for nothing, ICEdot.

Of course, when you're talking about helments it's easy to get carried away by the safety aspect, but what good is being safe if you don't know where you're going? Here's a helment that purports to keep you both safe and oriented, which I'm also sure I've mentioned before at some point but can't be bothered to verify:

Yep, a helment that warns you with bright lights when you venture outside of the gentrified parts of town. It had to happen.

I don't blame the man at all. A fine upstanding citizen on his way to his Nobel Prize-winning work at the par-ti-cule accelerat-y-er, and he has to wait for up to five seconds to pass the goddamn freds.

If only it were required to spell the word "truck" before getting a license to drive one.

The helmet heart rate monitor is not the worst idea I ever heard, but anything that adds weight to the helmet adds stress to the neck shoulder muscles, and I have never heard of anybody crashing and destroying their chest strap. Now, crashing and destroying their helmet, that's a different story.

I am starting up a kickstarter campaign to fund a heart rate monitor that transmits remotely to the Hyundai which I am leasing.

Here are the two words I've been longing to use in a sentence: I'll have the bacon cheeseburger with tater tots and hold the lettuce no on second thought keep the lettuce and add extra onions and also a Coke or Pepsi or whatever you have is fine."

The optical pulse reader helmet could easily detect your O2 saturation and tell you when you were really about to Fredgasm on a climb. …or when you have a pneumothorax from going perineum over Soda Stream® or being given the "brursh" by a hate-crazed montagnard.

comes in an artisanal box accompanied by a birth certificate and optional certificates of authenticity and parentage. The $563,592.42 will provide initial funding for shoprite bag artisan package wrapping, stamps, and labor costs incurred by my several grandchildren (plus kickbacks to their mother).

MOTHER MARY AND ALL THE SAINTS! This Keith Maddox lives in Piedmont, Alabama. And the police are quite aware of his threats. Means nothing to most of you but its a rather decent rural bikeen area and I like to ride there. I have to load up the not so smugness F150 to get there, but... The Sunny King Crit, the Cheaha Challange Gran Fondo, etc are run in this area. Believe it or not, folks like this are getting harder to find, thank Lob. Ride safe this holiday weekend and if you can't be safe, well at least be sanitary!

There used to be a band called The Gays... so like, you might try out to "join The Gays" or you might be in another band that "played with The Gays" or you might "open for The Gays" or four people were "in The Gays."

Snob, what's the name of that bike rear mount camera thingy again? If I was that company I would stand on that street where Mr. Maddox takes his morning commute and pass them out to every cyclist. Sooner or later one of those cameras will catch Keith in the act. Keith gets removed from the equation and the camera company has advertising gold.

In that video I saw one antisocial, homicidal maniac. I also saw four antisocial, suicidal maniacs. Well, maybe three, the second rider looked to be putting in a little bit of effort to share the road.

It is a really shitty situation that bikes have to share the lane with cars, ideally every public thoroughfare should have dedicated, preferably completely separated bicycle lanes. But that is not going to happen anytime soon, so we have to make the best of the reality. The reality is that we have a very reasonable right to travel along public thoroughfare by bicycle, but the reality is also that bicycle and motor vehicle are completely incompatible due to how fucking slow bicycles are and the vulnerability of the rider. The only way to make the situation reasonable is if both parties get the fuck out of each other's way. Just because those cyclists were acting lawfully doesn't mean they weren't being inconsiderate assholes who are contributing to the shitty situation.

Cyclists are entitled to travel safely along public thoroughfares , but just because bicycles are associated with recreation and enjoyment, it doesn't mean that you are entitled to a carefree and enjoyable ride along that public thoroughfare. When motor vehicle and bicycle come into proximity of each other we expect the motorist to show an extra level of caution and provide a safe buffer as they pass. Well, the flip side of the coin is that cyclists should be doing the likewise, and if there is a constant stream of traffic, well they should be cautiously hugging the line and creating as much buffer as possible the whole shitty time.

Wait, let me get this straight. In Alabama you get charged for making a YouTube video making veiled threats, but in NYC you can carry them out with impunity? And this isn't even the bizzaro universe. Or is it?

I imagine the ICEdot would do very well in the Greater Piedmont Alabama area. You could tally the accidents and chart the data and it would line up perfectly with Ol' Keiths' work commute. Or his B-Double-E-Double-R-UNS.

Oh, yeah, I remember now why I stopped reading this blog. Same bullshit as when I stopped reading two years ago. Cars and helmets. Like we hadn't noticed.P.S.--just mispeling the word don't maike it funy just anoiing.

ge- I think he mighta done more than just threaten. He actually ran the last guy off the road.

ce- hugging the line is NOT safe. It is perfectly reasonable to slow down a little bit till you can safely pass a slower moving vehicle. Fer fuck sake, as a driver you are in a car, moving at impossible speed thanks to the rotting flesh of a few million dinosaurs. I am ok with bike-free highways where cars can go as fast as they like, but where bikes share the road, cars should go slower.

Babs, by no means defending the guy, but I only saw him crack open the throttle and speed by him. Unfortunately, the IT police at work won't let me have a browser from this century, so the article isn't loading - headline says he was charged with threats. Damn phone won't load it either. I don't even play a lawyer on TV, but on the internet any thing goes, so - seems to me he'd be charged with assault if he ran him off the road.

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!